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A PROPHECY FULFILLED 

ADDRESS BEFORE THE TULALIP INDIAN 

SCHOOL, TULALIP, WASHINGTON 

21 DECEMBER, 1920 

BY; ; 
EDMOND S. MEANY 



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A PROPHECY FULFILLED 



Address Before the Tulalip Indian School, TulaHp, 
Washington, 21 December, 1920. 



By Edmond S. Meany, 
Professor of History, University of Washington. 



Three hundred years ago today the Pilgrim Fathers 
landed at Plymouth Rock. We are assembled to celebrate 
that event as an epoch in American history. 

There is a peculiar significance in the fact that Indians 
should gather here on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in 
1920 to celebrate the landing of white men among other 
Indians in 1620 on that distant Atlantic shore. A cycle 
has been completed ; a continent has been spanned ; and 
two races of men have learned the meaning of clasped 
hands as together they turn hopeful eyes toward the future. 

In that old time which we are honoring your people 
knew the bays and shores of this beautiful arm of the sea. 
Those towering snow-crowned peaks they knew and the 
rivers running through the deep forests of fir and spruce 
and cedar. Their canoes were swift in war or chase and 
they sought omens and guidance from forest, sea and sky. 

The white man came with iron and gold, with cloth 
and flour. The old wild life was quickly changed. The 
legends of blue jay and beaver gave place to the book and 
the school. 

The book speaks of all time and all people. We still love 
the legends. They are like voices of the forest. But now 
we are Americans. We salute our flag and we would honor 
the Pilgrim Fathers on this anniversary day. 

Oh, my Indian friends, I would share your spirit and 
join this festival of remembrance with a feeling that 
mingles reverence and hope. 

The landing of the Pilgrim Fathers has been described 
in a poem by Mrs. Felicia Hemans: 

"The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white wave's foam, 
And the rocking pines in the forest roared, 
This was their welcome home." 



Later in the same poem she continues: 

"Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod ; 
They have left unstained what there they found. 
Freedom to worship God." 

In that beautiful language we have a picture of the wild 
landing place and the real reason for their coming. Some 
who did not like the Church in England at that time sought 
to purify it and were called Puritans. One group went to 
Holland and later to America. On account of this journey- 
ing they got the name of Pilgrims. These are the ones 
whom we are honoring today. The party which left Hol- 
land in July, 1620, sailed in the Speedwell and was to be 
joined by the Mayflotver with other Pilgrims at Southamp- 
ton, England. The two vessels sailed together on August 5, 
but put back to Dartmouth because the Speedwell had be- 
gun to leak. Again they started and for the same reason 
put back into Plymouth. There they decided to leave the 
Speedwell and to reduce the company so that the May- 
flower could carry the whole number. 

Governor Bradford later wrote his History of Plymouth 
Plantation where, in old fashioned phrases, he tells about 
reducing the company as follows : "Those that went bak 
were for the most parte such as were willing so to doe, 
either out of some discontente, or feare they conceived of 
the ill success of the vioage, seeing so many croses befale, 
and the year time so farr spente ; but others, in regarde of 
their owne weaknes, and charge of many yonge children, 
were thought least usefull and most unfite to bear the brunte 
of this harde adventure ; unto which worke of God, and 
judgmente of their brethren, they were contented to sub- 
mite. And thus, like Gedion's armie, this small number 
was divided, as if the Lord by this worke of his provi- 
dence thought these few to many for the great worke he 
had to doe." 

Early in September, the Mayflower sailed on her mem- 
orable voyage for Virginia, where other Englishmen had 
settled at Jamestown thirteen years before, or in 1607. 
The vessel was carried northward and instead of reaching 
Virginia they came to a harbor in New England. This 
harbor they called Plymouth in honor of the English harbor 
from which they had last sailed. While they were searching 



APR 18 1921 



that harbor for a place to land some of the men showed 
waywardness and so a compact or agreement was drawn 
upon for all to sign. That early government document is 
important in American history. It is as follows : 

"In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are 
underwriten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne 
Lord, King James, by ye grace of God, of Great Britaine, 
Franc, & Ireland, king, defender of ye faith, &c, having 
undertaken, for ye glorie of God, and advancemente of 
ye Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a 
voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye northern parts of Vir- 
ginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye 
presence of God, and one of another, covenant and com- 
bine ourselves togeather into a civill body politick, for our 
better ordering & preservation & furtherance of ye ends 
aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enacte, constitute and 
frame such just&eqall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, 
& offices, from time to time as shall be thought most meete 
& convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which 
we promise all due submission and obdience. In witnes 
whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap 
Codd ye 11 of November, in ye year of ye raigne of our 
soveraigne Lord, King James, of England, France & Ire- 
land ye eighteenth and of Scotland ye fiftie fourth. Ano. 
Dom. 1620." 

It was winter when they landed. They did not make 
sufficient preparations and about half of their company 
perished during those first cold months. Those who sur- 
vived learned from experience. Others who joined them 
from England all profited from the hard lessons of that 
first winter. They were helped by the Indians who were 
friendly with the newcomers. 

From this settlement and others like it grew the colonies 
and, later, states of New England. From New England 
came strength for the new nation. Through those colonial 
times there continued the idea of freedom to worship God 
and there developed also plans for other forms of free- 
dom, culminating in the struggle for independence and the 
creation of the United States of America. 

Those who accepted responsibilities in the new nation 
remembered that the Pilgrim Fathers had stood for re- 
ligious and civil liberty, for good government, and for in- 
tellectual improvement through school and college. They 



decided that such a legacy should not be destroyed but 
should be enlarged and transmitted to future generations 
of Americans. 

One hundred years ago, leaders in New England cele- 
brated this same anniversary. The principal speaker was 
the orator and statesman, Daniel Webster, who made a re- 
markable prophecy about the celebrations on this day 
reaching from sea to sea. His words were as follows : 

"The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occa- 
sion will soori be passed. Neither we nor our children can 
expect to behold its return. They are in the distant re- 
gions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power 
of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence, to 
trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to 
survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their 
country, during the lapse of a century. We would antici- 
pate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep 
regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate 
and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount 
the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning 
of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, 
the voice of acclamation and gratitude commencing on the 
Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of 
the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs 
of the Pacific seas." 

Here are we, on the edge of the Pacific seas, paying re- 
spectful tribute to the Pilgrim Fathers. The same glad 
acclaim has kept company with the hours from dawn at 
Plymouth Rock to this placid twilight on Puget Sound. 

Let us more completely fulfill the Websterian prophecy 
by recalling some of the progress of the century now clos- 
ing. From the beginning of civilization it has been a joy 
for man to hold up for approval the greatest achievement 
of his time. Ancient man held up the seven wonders of 
his day as follows : 

1. Pyramids of Egypt. 

2. Mausoleum. 

3. Temple of Diana at Ephesus. 

4. Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 

5. Colossus at Rhodes. 

6. Statue of Jupiter by Phidias. 

7. Pharos, a light-house at Alexandria. 



In the Middle Ages, before the discovery of America, 
man again took an inventory of achievement and held up 
these seven wonders of his day : 

1. Coliseum of Rome, 

2. Catacombs of Alexandria. 

3. Great Wall of China. 

4. Stonehenge in England. 

5. Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

6. Porcelain Tower of Nankin. 

7. Mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople. 

In our own day a vote has been taken throughout the 
world among men and women skilled in science and letters 
who chose the following as the seven wonders of the modem 
world : 

1. Wireless. ■^ 

2. Telephone. 

3. Aeroplane. '- 

4. Radium. 

5. Antiseptics and Antitoxins. ''" 

6. Spectrum Analysis. '' 

7. X-Rays. 

That is a wonderful showing, so dififerent from the 
wonders of both the ancient and the medieval man. Not 
one of those modern achievements was known when Web- 
ster made his prophecy one hundred years ago. They have 
all come in our own centuiy. However, on this day we can 
declare that all those wonders were begun by the Pilgrim 
Fathers and by men and women like them everywhere who 
established schools and colleges to advance the cause of 
learning. 

But the prophecy said that we would survey the pro- 
gress of our own country during the century. It can be 
swiftly done for the present purpose. During the same 
year in which Mr. Webster gave his prophecy the nation 
reached a crisis in the Missouri Compromise. That seemed 
to settle a troubled question. In reality it linked the slave 
power with politics and Thomas Jefferson said it was "like 
a firebell in the night." 

In 1823, disturbances in Europe and the Spanish- 
American revolutions called from the President of the 
United States a pronouncement which has since been 



known as the Monroe Doctrine. The history of our na- 
tion and of other nations has been profoundly affected by 
that doctrine for the past century. 

From 1830 to 1833 that "firebell in the night" kept the 
nation awake during the conflict over nulHfication. Was 
the nation only a compact? Could a state nullify or set 
aside a law of Congress? The debates decided that the 
nation was not a compact but really a Union and the great 
tragedy was thus postponed for nearly thirty years. 

In 1844, James K. Polk was elected President. The 
two successful slogans in the campaign were : "Fifty-four, 
Forty or Fight !" and "All of Oregon and All of Texas !" 
The immediate results have exercised enduring influence 
on the history of the Nation. The dispute with Great 
Britain over the northern boundary did not bring war nor 
did it bring the line for which voters had clamored. The 
compromise treaty of June 15, 1846, fixed the line at the 
forty-ninth parallel and the Pacific Northwest started on 
its career of wonderful progress under the Stars and 
Stripes. The dispute over the boundary of Texas brought 
war with Mexico. When the treaty of peace was signed 
on February 2, 1848, the United States secured all of 
Texas, and all of what now comprises New Mexico, Ari- 
zona, California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, 
Colorado and Kansas. 

Later in that same year of 1848, gold was discovered 
in California and eighty thousand men rushed into the re- 
gion in one year. They wanted local government. A con- 
vention was held at Monterey, a freesoil constitution was 
adopted and admission to the Union was requested. Once 
more the combination of the slave-power and politics 
sounded the "fire-bell in the night." Civil war was again 
averted by the great compromise of 1850. 

The ten years following that compromise were filled 
with excitement. The Kansas-Nebraska legislation of 1854 
destroyed the compromises and opened the territories to 
slavery. The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 foretold the 
"irrepressible conflict." The election of Lincoln hastened 
forward the great tragedy, the four years of Civil War. 
In a rapid survey such as this, we must not pause over the 
frightful carnage, the awe-inspiring waste of precious hu- 
man lives, but rather fix our gaze on the great result, — 



stripping the shackles of slavery from the arms of four 
million black men, women and children. If the children of 
Pilgrim Fathers taught lessons of civil liberty, here was a 
result big enough to fill a century. 

The years of reconstruction saw many valorous men 
grappling with economic problems. Homesteaders were en- 
couraged to settle the opening West. Railroads were sub- 
sidized with lavish grants that they might be rushed over 
plains and mountains to the western sea. In the midst of 
such progress, Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. 
That huge province is only beginning to receive a tithe of 
its merited appreciation. 

When the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence was being celebrated, the exposition in Phila- 
delphia astonished the world with evidences of progress 
made by the Republic in the hundred years. It may be ot 
interest to mention two toys in that exhibition — the electric 
lamp and the telephone. Few who were then amused could 
realize how those two inventions were to influence civili- 
zation. 

That same year, 1876, saw the last great battle with 
American Indians, when the tribes of the Sioux Nation de- 
stroyed the army under General G. A. Custer. Soon there- 
after the cattle men and farmers possessed the plains. The 
Superintendent of the United States Census in 1890 made 
the declaration that the frontier had disappeared after 
1880. 

The real railroad builders knew the interdependence of 
farm and railroad and the value of both to a growing na- 
tion. James J. Hill once declared: "Land without people 
is a wilderness ; people without land is a mob." As the 
greater opportunities of the frontier had gone, attention 
was turned toward irrigation to still further reduce the 
qualities of "the wilderness" and "the mob." 

Two events of far-reaching import occurred in 1898. 
The Spanish-x\merican War freed Cuba and gave the 
United States overseas possessions which have changed the 
Republic's perspective with world-wide responsibilities. 
The other event was the gold rush to Alaska. The rapid 
gathering of the precious metal in those fields produced re- 
sults which are still being studied by economists. 



In 1900, Secretary of State John Hay lifted American 
diplomacy into leadership for a time in the Orient by his 
dealing with the troubled conditions in China. 

In 1903, the United States began the construction of 
the Panama Canal, the completion of which credits Amer- 
ica with one of the greatest achievements of the century. 

It is not proper for Americans to boast of their part in 
the Great World War. We served and sacrificed in the 
great cause. The heroic dead and the lavish dollars may 
all be counted in course of time, but the full sacrifice of 
wounds on the field and of death and suffering at home 
can never be computed. As this century we are now con- 
sidering draws to a close, earnest men are struggling with 
the problems of binding up personal and national wounds 
and the establishment of an international agreement that 
will prevent such another destructive conflict among the 
nations of the earth. 

We have fulfilled the prophecy spoken one hundred 
years ago today. What shall we say to those who may 
assemble here on the next centennial anniversary ? We have 
numerous records of Indians who attain ages greater than 
a hundred years. So it may be that some of you younger 
Indians may live that long and bear witness of this meet- 
ing to that one. It is not likely, however, that any of us 
will live to see that day. Those who will assemble then are 
of the future. 

They will love the same great mountain peaks cleaving 
the sky, the same great rivers running toward the sea, the 
same wide shores of "Whulge" at ebb and flow of tide. 

They will cherish faint echoes of the forests and your 
fathers' legends of eagle, of beaver and bluejay. They will 
know that we met here to remember the past and to greet 
the future. ) 

We lift our voices to you of the future. We ask you 
to cherish good government, civil and religious freedom, 
improved education, equality of opportunities for all. We 
transmit to you all the best legacies of the past. We trust 
that your century's survey will reveal a progress far greater 
than our own. We beseech you to send the time-honored 
American ideals forward to the unnumbered years of our 
beloved Republic. 



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